Page 62 of Forced Bratva Wife

I skidded to a stop, frozen in place, as I watched the apparent love of my life held at fucking gunpoint.

“Don’t you fucking touch her,” I growled, seething with barely restrained rage.

“Or what, you prick?” Pavel rolled his eyes at me. “I’ve got your sweetie, and my gun’s making a nice home right next to her fucking skull. I have no issue with blowing her brains out, especially not in front of you since it’ll just be icing on this particular cake.”

He pressed the metal into Parker’s scalp, and she hissed.

“Let me go!”

Pavel sneered at her, backhanding her with the pistol, and Parker’s head jacked to the side. A massive bruise was already forming on her cheek when she pulled her head back up, and I shot another step forward.

“The fuck I say, Vadim! You get cozy where you’re at!” Pavel wiped across his forehead with the same hand, smearing his sweat, and he looked back up at me with a sickening grin. “From my perspective, you simply altered the specific details slightly. I still want you for her. So, you come inside, nice and easy, and I’ll just kill you and be done with this. Parker can fuck off after that.”

“You can’t!” Parker screamed, her eyes flaring wide at me.

She shook her head as we both held each other’s stares for several moments. I didn’t want to fucking die, leave her alone, but I had no idea what the ETA on my men was. I hadn’t even made it inside, and we were here.

They can hear this, though. Get a time from them.

“Let her go, and I’ll come inside.” I held my hands up in surrender. “Nice and slow, just how you want.

Pietor’s voice sounded over the wire, quick enough for me to hear before Pavel drowned it out.

“Two minutes. We’ll be there in two.”

“Yeah, that’s how I fucking want it, you fuck!” Pavel pushed the gun harder into Parker’s head, gripping her arm. “And I ain’t letting her go until you’re dead, so.”

Dammit. Two minutes is too long.

I started moving, I couldn’t hold the guy off for that long; I knew it. But I could at least give the guys time to get here and get Parker out of harm’s way. She was what truly mattered, after all.

When it was clear I was coming, Parker struggled harder against her father’s hold.

“No! Lev, don’t do this!”

She thrashed, her voice shrill and panicked, and it was the most painful thing I’d ever had to watch unfold before my eyes. My chest ached for it, and the fiery burn in my veins was replaced by an icy dread at leaving her without protection for too long.

Nothing was keeping Pavel from killing her once I was out of the picture, anyway. I knew that. I just needed Pietor and the crew to fucking get here already.

“Lev!”

I took another step.

“No!” Tears spilled from her eyes, and it hit me as good as any shot to the chest.

No one cried for me. No one really cared like that except Pietor, but that asshole was too hard to cry. Hell, even the Vadim household proper would be infuriated at the offense, but they wouldn’t cry. We’d all spent the last of our tears during our youth. Once you were in the family proper, there was no place for that shit.

“Get out of here, little one. You run. Leave this behind you.”

Parker shook her head. A burn set up shop behind my own lids. For once, I actually managed to shock myself. I felt like I was being pulled apart—drawn and quartered—and it was all for this incredible young woman who’d stumbled into my life.

“Please!” The furious refusal was still plain on her face, and I clenched my jaw as I took another and another slow step, my hands still raised high. A few more of these and I’d be in the warehouse, out of sight from the exterior.

“Listen to me, Parker.” I stared at her hard. “Get back to school. Get your degree. Help people.”

“You son of bitch! You can’t do this!” Her eyes left mine for a moment, going to her father with a fury I’d never seen in those peridot irises. “You. All this fucking nonsense about becoming a mobster. I hope they all eat you alive. I swear to God, if I ever have the chance, I’ll kill you myself.”

“Oh, there’s that fire I’ve always wanted to see!” He glared down at her, spittle flying from his mouth as he insulted her. “Maybe if you’d been half as wirey as this when you were growing up, you’d have become something useful.”

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